6/7/13 Automotive News www.autonews.com/article/20130603/OEM06/306039980&template=printart 1/6 LEARNING LAB Stanford innovation center studies the auto's past, plans for its future Mark Rechtin Automotive News | June 3, 2013 12:01 am EST -- UPDATED: 6/7/13 12:30 pm ET clarifies some terminology PALO ALTO, Calif. Stroll through Stanford University's 8,000squarefoot Automotive Innovation Facility here and you quickly discover that it's more than a learning center for budding engineers. For instance, you're as likely to hear a serious discussion about the role of cars in American literature or the vintage automobiles used in filming The Great Gatsby as you are about electromechanical systems and battery thermodynamics. Drawing on Stanford's resources, the facility has become an academic hothouse for all things automotive. It's a thinkbig tank that looks at everything from how body panels corrode to the history of iconic cars not just to solve today's problems but to understand the future of personal transportation and to plan for it. And the automotive curriculum has proved popular in this left coast breeding ground for Silicon Valley computer titans, having grown to 357 students this year from 106 during the 2011 and 2012 school years. It also has grabbed the attention of several automakers eager to tap into Stanford brainpower. Renault Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn and former BMW design chief Chris Bangle recently showed up to make short speeches and then casually share hot dogs and beer with Stanford students and talk about their research projects. Mechanical engineering is central to the curriculum but at Stanford they ponder the auto and its role in our future from a variety of perspectives. "We want kids and faculty from all over the university," said Clifford Nass, director of Stanford's Revs Program, one of several automotive programs at the university. "It would be a failure if the only kids here were mechanical engineers. It would be a waste." Stanford does not offer a degree in automotive studies, but the syllabus of carrelated courses is denser than at many institutions that do. The Automotive Innovation Facility largely funded by a $5.75 million gift from Volkswagen opened in 2010, but it houses several departments that have been around for a lot longer. • The Center for Automotive Research at Stanford, or CARS, studies safety, performance and sustainability for the next generation of vehicles. It mostly works as an affiliate program to help automakers with specific projects. • Revs is a engineering program that considers the automobile and its role in society, looking at its past and present and developing ideas for the future. • The Communication between Humans and Interactive Media Lab works on automotive telematics. In addition, groups of faculty and students fabricate solarpowered race cars and study drivebywire and driver assistance systems, and a Dynamic Design Lab that builds autonomous vehicles, including an Audi TTS that zoomed up Pikes Peak.
Stanford innovation center studies theauto's past, plans for its futureMark Rechtin Automotive News | June 3, 2013 - 12:01 am EST-- UPDATED: 6/7/13 12:30 pm ET - clarifies some terminology
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Stroll through Stanford University's 8,000-square-foot Automotive Innovation Facilityhere and you quickly discover that it's more than a learning center for budding engineers.
For instance, you're as likely to hear a serious discussion about the role of cars in American literature or thevintage automobiles used in filming The Great Gatsby as you are about electromechanical systems andbattery thermodynamics.
Drawing on Stanford's resources, the facility has become an academic hothouse for all things automotive.It's a think-big tank that looks at everything from how body panels corrode to the history of iconic cars -- notjust to solve today's problems but to understand the future of personal transportation and to plan for it.
And the automotive curriculum has proved popular in this left coast breeding ground for Silicon Valleycomputer titans, having grown to 357 students this year from 106 during the 2011 and 2012 school years.
It also has grabbed the attention of several automakers eager to tap into Stanford brainpower. Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn and former BMW design chief Chris Bangle recently showed up to make shortspeeches and then casually share hot dogs and beer with Stanford students and talk about their researchprojects.
Mechanical engineering is central to the curriculum but at Stanford they ponder the auto -- and its role inour future -- from a variety of perspectives.
"We want kids and faculty from all over the university," said Clifford Nass, director of Stanford's RevsProgram, one of several automotive programs at the university. "It would be a failure if the only kids herewere mechanical engineers. It would be a waste."
Stanford does not offer a degree in automotive studies, but the syllabus of car-related courses is denserthan at many institutions that do.
The Automotive Innovation Facility -- largely funded by a $5.75 million gift from Volkswagen -- opened in2010, but it houses several departments that have been around for a lot longer.
• The Center for Automotive Research at Stanford, or CARS, studies safety, performance and sustainabilityfor the next generation of vehicles. It mostly works as an affiliate program to help automakers with specificprojects.
• Revs is a engineering program that considers the automobile and its role in society, looking at its past andpresent and developing ideas for the future.
• The Communication between Humans and Interactive Media Lab works on automotive telematics.
In addition, groups of faculty and students fabricate solar-powered race cars and study drive-by-wire anddriver assistance systems, and a Dynamic Design Lab that builds autonomous vehicles, including an AudiTTS that zoomed up Pikes Peak.
Stanford Revs neuroscience researcher Dr. Lene Harbott takes a measurement of vintage race driver John Morton beforeapplying EEG electrodes to his scalp.
Letting outsiders in
By involving nonengineering students, Stanford undertakes research projects that would be impossible
otherwise, said Reilly Brennan, executive director of Revs.
For instance, Owen Falk, a grad student in chemical engineering, is using the facility to study the corrosive
effect of quick-shine products on the sheet metal and lacquers of vintage automobiles. Falk theorizes that
effect of quick-shine products on the sheet metal and lacquers of vintage automobiles. Falk theorizes thatsome of the products actually break down the sheet metal.
At a recent open house at the Revs Institute for Automotive Research in Naples, Fla., Falk held court with awho's who of the vintage car world, including collector Bruce Meyer and Mark Reinwald, automotive curatorfor Ralph Lauren.
With a corroded 2-by-1-foot body panel pulled from a 1930 Bugatti tucked under his arm, Falk had joboffers from big-time collectors before he left the room.
"In most classes the professor has an idea he wants to impregnate into the students," Falk said. "This ismore about, 'Here are some ideas, go grapple with them and come up with a rational judgment at the end.'It's very empowering."
Naturally, there is a place for mechanical and electrical engineers in the program. Stanford has been a keyparticipant in the World Solar Challenge, a biennial solar-powered car race through the Australian Outback.Stanford also has been a research hub for autonomous car testing by VW/Audi, Nissan, Toyota, Bosch andother OEMs as well as Tier 1 suppliers. But some projects look backward.
In one course, called ReMake, students tear down and reassemble a 1962 Cadillac, to see how engineersof that era made decisions about design, performance and safety.
Because students from all disciplines take part in Revs, it brings in guest lecturers from the university's far-flung fields of expertise.
For instance, a Stanford neurologist might explain why the EEG results of race drivers show furiouslyincreased brain activity during routine braking and downshifting, but not when the rear wheels lose tractionwhen cornering.
An urban scientist can discuss how cars will fit into the crowded cities of the future, or a gerontologist mighthelp design instrument panels for elderly drivers.
A professor from Stanford Law School might discuss the liability issues associated with autonomous cars, ora psychologist specializing in young adults can weigh in on how new drivers multitask with telematics.
"We want kids and faculty from allover the university," says CliffordNass, director of Stanford's RevsProgram. "It would be a failure if the
Stanford Ph.D. candidate Holly Russell talks about her research with mechanical engineering student Russell Patton,center, and Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn. Ghosn is among the auto industry executives who have taken an interestin Stanford’s automotive programs.
The Big Idea
On the industry side, the CARS program has 21 automaker and supplier affiliate partners working to
determine the future of mobility, said Sven Beiker, a former BMW engineer who became executive director
of CARS in 2008.
"We are looking at what driving is," Beiker said. "Is it automated? Is it electrified? Is it connected? These are
questions that go way beyond the technology. We're not trying to find the best laser sensor or battery. We
are incubating research then handing it over to research labs."
Recently, CARS and Revs staged the Big Idea Festival, which gave student teams free rein to develop the
next generation of telematics interfaces.
More than 200 industry representatives looked at 70 ideas, ranging from practical to outrageous.
Among the ideas:
• Syncing two vehicle occupants' iPods so that their musical tastes don't clash on a road trip.
• Using 3-D imaging to make other vehicles appear to be elephants and zebras.
• Making driving a game in which drivers get social media bitcoins as rewards for good piloting.
• Turning the inside of the vehicle into 360 degrees of video screens.
• Using object recognition software to inform drivers if they left something in the vehicle.
"Were some of the ideas terrible? Of course," Nass said. "But some were amazing. Toyota and Chrysler
invited kids who weren't 'car kids' to come work for them."
Stanford's industrial design school -- known as the d.school -- also participates in projects at the Automotive
Innovation Facility. One project analyzed how BMW's Bavarian ethos could be transported to a design
studio in Southern California.
The d.school uses ethnography and culture as problem-solving tools, said Michael Shanks, a professor of
classical archaeology who doubles as a car nut.
Shanks said Stanford is trying to teach the importance of the automobile in modern culture, with a backdrop
of archaeology, art history and literature.
"The car is moving from hobby to history," he said. "It's part of our American heritage."
Simulating the future
The facility's latest project is the creation of a driving simulator that
can be programmed by students, Nass said.
The simulator, to be completed in September, will test the
reactions of a driver who must suddenly take control of a
semiautonomous car.
"You look away to read The New York Times or watch Les Miz andtraffic got crowded, the road surface changed, and it started
traffic got crowded, the road surface changed, and it startedraining. You have to be responsible for taking over the car," Nasssaid. "That is a phenomenal mental transition problem."
Said Beiker: "We want to introduce students to working on things like automated or solar vehicles, so theydon't just go to work for Google or Facebook."
The approach seems to be working.
Aerospace engineering student Max Praglin is working on Stanford's solar car project, designing the batterymanagement electronics system.
"We get to build our own equipment. This is hands-on engineering," Praglin said. "This is the only projectwhere we get exposed to this, let alone build something."
Stanford Revs' Owen Falk displays corrosion's effects on a 1930 Bugatti body panel to vintage car
